Amy Krouse Rosenthal



"Long ago I was given the advice that it is better to say your good-byes early than to be the last to leave." >>Amy Krouse Rosenthal


Readers of all ages lost a champion on March 13. Amy Krouse Rosenthal (1965-2017) was a rare breed of writer, producing books packed full of wit and sharp intellect for both children and adults.

If you're a reader of the New York Times, you may think her name seems familiar. Amy wrote a Modern Love column just a month before she died. The essay, which was published March 3, is titled, "You May Want to Marry My Husband." She shared with us the reasons she quickly fell in love with a man named Jason. Arguably, the strongest sentence in the essay is simply, "I'm going to miss looking at that face of his."

Upon her diagnosis of ovarian cancer, Amy cancelled a number of planned trips and time spent in writers' residencies, causing her to remark in the New York Times' essay on the similarity of the words cancer and cancel.

For those of us not fortunate enough to have known her in person, we have her books to help us reflect, laugh, weep, and grow a little smarter.  

Her adult books are inventive and fun. One day in a bookstore, I came across her memoir Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. I was immediately intrigued by the idea of telling a life story in the form of an encyclopedia. Years later, when I read she had published another memoir, this time in the format of a textbook, I immediately bought a copy of Textbook. This book was creatively interactive...Amy wanted to connect with her readers. One my favorite chapters is found in the science unit and is a "short, collective biography experiment (p. 158)." It could be an interesting and fascinating exercise at your next dinner party. 

After reading most of her books for little ones, I felt as if I knew her personally. When my second great-nephew was born last year, there was no doubt that one of his first gift books from me was going to be I Wish You More. In June, when his family moves to a different city, it will be another AKR book that accompanies him, That's Me Loving You. 

Take time to browse her picture books. In Sugar Cookies, One Smart Cookie, and Christmas Cookies, Amy shared a lesson about love with kids of all ages, defining what compromise, forgive and gracious really mean, using baking cookies as a guide. We can all explore the true meaning of friendship in Spoon and Chopsticks. Introduce yourself to Uni, a unicorn who enthusiastically believes that little girls are real (Uni the Unicorn). Have fun with wordles in I Scream Ice Scream. What are wordles? Amy defined them as "groups of words that sound exactly the same but mean different things." For example, reindeer and rain, dear. There's even homage paid to an often overused punctuation mark - Exclamation Mark. How would a day filled with yes feel? The book, Yes Day, promises it would be a day of pizza, ice cream and invented games. Rounding out her list of picture books: The Wonder Book; Plant a Kiss; Little Miss, Big Sis; Little Oink; and Duck! Rabbit!

Textbook ends with a collection of notes (offered with musical accompaniment), including this thought from Amy:

"Bye. I love you. Thank you. In a last-call, sincere farewell moment, those are the six words that would fall out of my mouth. I don't think I could even suppress it."

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